Re. Lieu has a point, you know:
Lieu read headlines from a Google search about the House Majority Whip, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise. Noting that the articles about Scalise were all positive and include citations from conservative media outlets, Lieu asked Pichai whether individuals at Google were manipulating those results to favor Scalise.
“You don’t have a group of people at Google, sitting there thinking, ‘Hey, we like Steve Scalise, we’re going to generate positive articles on these search results,” he said. “That’s not what’s happening, right?”
Pichai answer no, and added, “We don’t deal with individual queries and with any viewpoint.”
But then Lieu pivoted — pulling out his smartphone for a search in real-time — and entered King’s name into Google.
King, who was sitting across the room on the powerful House panel, became visibly perturbed.
“I’m going to change one word. So I’m going to search for ‘Congressman Steve King,’ I’m going to hit the ‘news’ tab. First article that pops up is from ABC News,” Lieu said. “It says Steve King’s racist immigration talk prompts calls for congressional censure. That’s a negative article. But you don’t have a group of people at Google thinking and trying to modify search results — every time Steve King comes up, a negative article appears, that’s not what’s happening, right?”
Pichai again said no, reiterating that Google does not manipulate results for individuals like that.
“So let me just conclude here by stating the obvious,” Lieu responded. “If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don’t want negative search results, don’t do negative things.”
I hope there is video of King’s face when Lieu did this.
chopper
epic. getting trolled live in congress. good show.
Nicole
I want to stitch this on a sampler.
ruemara
I cannot understand the adoration of Beto, yet so few know what a frickin’ badass Ted Lieu. He’s funny, sharp and great at this. I wish more people knew him.
Procopius
I’m afraid I don’t get it. What point about Google was Lieu trying to make? Or was he just taking advantage of an opportunity to get in a dig at King? I don’t see King changing his behavior just because all the news stories about him are negative and so that’s what Google finds. I also don’t see him changing his behavior just because his peers despise him.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Too many Kirks, not enough Spocks.
TenguPhule
@Procopius:
Don’t be an asshole, or they will come?
ruemara
@Procopius: The point is that Google doesn’t control search results. It’s just made at the expense of Steve’s ego.
Wag
@chopper:
The Dems DO have spines! First Nancy Smash and now Lieu. The next several months are going to be EPIC fun.
My theory is that, immediately after the new Congress is sworn in, Mueller is going to drop charges on Pence In addition to Trump, forcing both of them out of office, and paving the way for President Pelosi.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Procopius:
Would agonizing physical and psychological torture change his behavior? Inquiring minds want to know. //
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: -10 points for failure to be amusing or subtle.
Corner Stone
Chris Matthews just compared Trump to Marty Feldman’s Igor in Young Frankenstein. That is fucking hilarious.
TenguPhule
Only Steve King would be dumb enough to complain about news article searches right after news articles about him being a literal Nazi came out.
dmsilev
@Procopius: King (and McCarthy) was trying to argue that Google is deliberately tilting the scales against conservatives. Lieu is making the obvious point that if Googling news stories on you return ‘Christ, what an asshole’, odds are that you’re an asshole.
cain
@ruemara:
I follow Ted on twitter, and he’s awesome. Much more connected than Beto who I don’t see much action on twitter. Beto is great for Texas, but Ted great for everyone.
waratah
@Procopius: King was complaining because his granddaughters phone had something pop up saying bad things about him.
David Evans
@Procopius: LIeu’s point is simply this:
And I’ve never seen it better put. It’s more convincing than saying “facts” (or “truth” or “logic”) “have a liberal bias” which is not even true in general and is more likely to prevent conservatives from accepting the point.
A Ghost To Most
If you don’t want to be the first result when someone searches for “assholes”, don’t do newsworthy assholish shit.
Carol
@ruemara: I can like both Beto and Ted.
dmsilev
@A Ghost To Most: c.f. Rick Santorum.
Wag
@Corner Stone:
No. It’s an insult to the memory of Igor, who was under his gruff exterior, a kind individual, the heart of the movie.
A Ghost To Most
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: How about enhanced interrogation techniques? King likes those.
cain
@Corner Stone:
Man, that is totally unfair. Marty’s Igor was so hilarious.. “What brain did you happen to pick..”.. Igor: Abi something.. Abby Normal” Sadly, that’s probably the same brain Trump has.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
Torture is genuinely horrible and wrong. I am curious if it can change someone’s beliefs or behaviors though. I’m going to lean towards no.
Adam L Silverman
I believe this is what you’re looking for:
lollipopguild
@Corner Stone: “Hump? What hump?”
SFAW
@ruemara:
Almost everything I’ve ever read from him — well, in the twitterverse, I guess — has been him smacking the Rethugs upside their alleged “heads” with a 2 x 4. I think if Seth Moulton REALLY wanted to do some good for the country and the Democrat Party, he’d demand that Speaker Pelosi give Ted Lieu the (unofficial) title of “Ass-Kicking Motherfucker,” and make sure he’s the go-to guy when there’s a need to respond in the media to Rethug bullshit.
A Ghost To Most
@Wag:
Agreed. Marty Feldman deserves better.
Gin & Tonic
@Wag: My theory is that, immediately after the new Congress is sworn in, winged monkeys will fly out of my butt.
GregB
All of these young, smart Democrats and of course Speaker Pelosi are going to drop shit-hammer after shit-hammer on the decadent, ignorant crumb-bum Republicans.
Platonailedit
Pundtwit ezra fucking klein is unendorsing paul fucking ryan since paul fucking ryan did not live up to ezra fucking klein’s blatantly false fucking expectations.
lollipopguild
Conservatives like King think that they are uncapable of doing anything “negative”. They think that everything they do is “positive’ and that the fake and evil media are always portraying them in a bad light. They, in their own mind are always right on everything.
lollipopguild
@Gin & Tonic: Pictures and video or it never happened.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Ted Lieu is on the leadership track in the House and was selected as an Assistant Whip last year. They know what they have.
@Procopius:
I see they have you on the overnight shift now, comrade! It’s barely 4 am in Moscow. You must have made your desyatnik angry.
Anyway, another day, another ruble, amirite?
A Ghost To Most
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Me too, but some traitorous MFers desperately deserve it.
Frankensteinbeck
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Yes, but not in a useful, predictable, or clear-cut way. It’s great for teaching someone to hate you and look for a chance to stab you in the back. Brainwashing uses minimal pain, because people build up resentment. It relies on tricks to make people think they’re making decisions that were fed to them instead. With torture, people know what the conflict is and create their own reaction, usually a combination of desperation and resentment. Basically, have you watched Game of Thrones? That Reek stuff, it doesn’t work like that. I wanted to hit Martin with a table watching it.
Corner Stone
@lollipopguild: Exactly.
Wag
@Gin & Tonic:
I realize that your theory is more likely than mine, but mine is hopeful, as opposed to strictly amusing
Yarrow
@ruemara: Ted Lieu is all over cable news shows, he’s funny as hell and his Twitter game is amazing. He’ll get a lot more attention over the next few months than Beto will because of the Mueller investigation.
Wag
@lollipopguild:
Never with a tux
Kirk Spencer
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Yes, it can change someone’s nature. Lots of documentation about this – it breaks people. Outgoing, confident individuals come back as withdrawn, nervous and indecisive. Brainwashing is more effective in such cases as well.
People who go through it can recover and become outgoing and confident again. But they’re not the same as they were before.
I would like to point out that this is the weakness of the “torture works” position. It does work, but it does so by making the subject want to tell you what you want to know regardless how true or false that may be. So you might get the truth, but more likely you’ll get the lie you’re looking for. And if the subject was innocent, well, not any more.
Please do not suggest torturing people any more, even in attempted humor. please.
Gwangung
@ruemara: Not white enough? Even thou Asian Americans are honorary whites?
/s
DavidtheB
@cain: Igor: Abi something.. Abby Normal”
IMO one of the greatest linse in movie history. The first time i watched it I didn’t even get it.
Searcher
@Wag: I don’t want Pelosi 2020 but MAN I want Pelosi 2019.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: How many you been keeping up in there? Wait. Wait. I don’t want to know. Personally, I don’t care what you get up to with the flying winged monkey fetish. You just keep those damned pandas away from me. Don’t act like you don’t have any. I know you do.
Wag
@Searcher:
Me, too
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara: Agreed.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: That sounds painful!
Mary G
@ruemara: I am also a huge fan of Ted Lieu! He is a killer on Twitter and very thoughtful and communicates so well with all kinds of people. I want him to run for president too. He’s not as pretty as Beto, but so smart and a veteran.
Mnemosyne
@waratah:
And that, of course, was Lieu’s point: if King wants to stop getting headlines for being an asshole, he should stop being an asshole and then he won’t have to explain to his granddaughter why there’s a news story about him being an asshole. Problem solved.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Frankensteinbeck:
That sounds about right. I remember reading about brainwashing the Chinese did to Americans in the 1950s. Once they returned home they lost their programming.
Yarrow
@Mary G: He was born in Taiwan so unfortunately he can’t run for president.
hueyplong
Kinda liking the cut of Lieu’s jib.
A Ghost To Most
@Kirk Spencer: Your concern is duly noted
Purity pony supplies are in aisle 11, I believe.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kirk Spencer:
You got it.
Mnemosyne
@Gwangung:
Until 2016, conservative Jews like Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin thought they were honorary whites. Whoopsie!
And they’re the smart ones who actually figured it out. Stephen Miller won’t get it until he’s finished serving his purpose and it’s his turn to go in front of the firing squad.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Gwangung: I get your point, but I suspect the actual problems are that (1) he’s from Southern California, so he automatically gets dismissed by the media as just another liberal in an indistinguishable, un-newsworthy mass of them, and (2) he’s a naturalized US citizen, born in Taiwan, so he can’t run for President under current law. He’d be an AWESOME point person for a constitutional amendment to change that law.
Patricia Kayden
@ruemara: I’m fine with the adoration of Beto. Rep Lieu is great too. I’d vote for either of them if they run against the Orange Bigot in 2020 if he’s not in jail by then.
Gwangung
Well, Lieu has ALWAYS had the spine liberals were demanding of Congressional Democrats, so folks SHOULD know a lot about him.
Eg, he’s from my Alma mater , so that was ALWAYS a plus for me.
Frankensteinbeck
@Platonailedit:
Klein was excellent at analyzing Obamacare and how it works. As a political analyst, not so much.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
I think there might be a difference between what he said regarding torture, and purity-pony-ism.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Bruce, is that you? //
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
While looking up details on Lieu’s citizenship, I noticed that loathsome dickwad Rep. Mark Meadows (R-newly insane state of NC) was born in France. FRANCE. Surely there must be a way to use that against him.
Jeffro
@Wag:
Ultimately, whatever deal might be struck with Trumpov to spare him from being RICO’d down to nothing and/or spending the rest of his post-office life in prison is going to have to include getting Pence to resign first. That means showing Pence – and the world – whatever goods Mueller has on Pence. If he refuses, HE’s the first one to get impeached.
Trumpov resigns and Pelosi becomes a caretaker president ’til 2020. Not a bad remedy but not as good as (unicorn magic underpants gnomes) SCOTUS declaring Trumpov’s win in 2016 the act of a criminal enterprise acting in conspiracy with a hostile foreign power and awards the 45th presidency to HRC. Who then (double unicorn magic) realizing the country would be in flames, albeit through no fault of her own, agrees to serve a day and resign, handing the presidency to OTHER caretaker president Tim Kaine.
It’s all so simple, dontcha see? ;)
(but we are, in fact, getting close to that than to Trumpov being re-elected…multiverses are condensing as we speak…
TenguPhule
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
But then Arnold Terminator would be eligible too.
TenguPhule
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Vichy Republican.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Although I appreciate most of the stuff Rubin’s been writing in the last year or so, I’m withholding judgment until after there’s a less-obviously-vile Rethug in power. Maybe she’s had an epiphany, and maybe it’s just a “Trump’s vile but Paul Ryan is dreamy” thing.
I hope you’re right, of course, but we’ll see.
NotMax
Steve King demands to be shown the series of tubes. “The late esteemed Senator Ted Stevens filled me in on all of this.” //
MomSense
@ruemara:
Lieu is one of our brightest lights. He is so impressive.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I skimmed the Wikipedia article about Stockholm Syndrome and it seems to be (a) extremely rare (about 8 percent of kidnapping victims are said to have it and (b) not well-studied, so nobody seems to know what it is or if it really exists at all.
A lot of the alleged cases like Elizabeth Smart’s turn out to have been very cagey victims who figured out a useful strategy to stay alive. She had no sympathy for her captors once she felt secure that they were in prison and would never be able to harm her or her family again.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Trump will never resign. He would sooner burn the whole country down first.
We’re going to find out one way or another how far the Secret Service will go to protect him.
Corner Stone
@SFAW: Rubin’s just waiting. She hates Trump. Fin.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
No, Rubin is still pining for a Republican Fjords of a Third Party Conservative Unicorn.
She’s just our useful idiot now.
Adam L Silverman
@ruemara: Lieu was not born in the US, he’s a naturalized citizen. So he can’t run for president. As a result, he doesn’t get the same attention.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Igor had redeeming characteristics and traits. Among other things he was loyal.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
That sounds ominous.
NotMax
@TenguPhule
Sometimes sputters along in more or less the right direction.
Sort of an idiot Trabant.
;)
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TenguPhule:
They’re professionals (mostly, and despite mostly being RWNJs). If he is impeached and removed from office, he will no longer be president* and they will transfer their protective duty status to the services they provide to former presidents. If it becomes necessary, in the course of doing that, they’ll protect him from himself. But this is all pretty far-fetched. There are certainly circumstances under which Trump would resign. He still gives indications he is susceptible to some forms of persuasion and coercion, and still demonstrates plenty of self-interest – even if his judgment about what is in his interest often sucks.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
Oh, I’m not giving either Kristol or Rubin a full pass. I’m just saying that they at least had enough intelligence to realize that the guys marching around chanting, “Jews will not replace us” might not be their friends.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Pictures or it will not have happened!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Adam L Silverman: Hard pass on the pix.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Let’s put it this way.
There is no precedent for a SS agent witnessing their main charge commit a major felony in front of them other then in the movies such as Absolute Power.
Redshift
I think people kind of missed the point (other than trolling) of Lieu’s example. It’s not just that King gets what he deserves because he’s an asshole. It’s that King was insisting that he must get bad search results because of “bias against conservatives,” so Lieu showed him a conservative who doesn’t get bad search results, and then trolled him to prove its because he’s an asshole.
(Of course, Scalise is actually an asshole too, he’s just more subtle about it.)
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: He can’t run for president. He’s a naturalized citizen.
dm
@Platonailedit: That’s not how I read that article.
It was Klein saying: “I got taken in by Ryan’s con and I was stupid to do so. Paul Krugman was right about Ryan and I was wrong.”
I hope he’s learned his lesson. More pundits should face up to it.
TenguPhule
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Pretty sure he would go off the rails long before conviction. Again, their mission is clear, but its a scenario I’m fairly sure has never come up in their professional training.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Honestly, I’m assuming that if things got to the point where Trump had to be put under arrest, the lawyers would negotiate one of those things where he shows up to do all of the fingerprinting etc and then leaves on his own recognizance, with Secret Service in tow.
As Adam has said many times before, there’s pretty much no way for him to ditch his security detail and slip away. He could find out pretty quickly that his detail is just as good at keeping him in as they are at keeping others out.
TenguPhule
@NotMax: Well played.
trnc
@dmsilev: In King’s defense, he was only irritated that some asshole said something stupid and racist that made him look bad.
Oh, wait, it was Steve King who said it. Every time. So never mind.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TenguPhule: Much as I love the idea that the Secret Service is going to patriot up and arrest him, if they saw him commit any felony other than a violent one, they would continue to carry out their mission of providing him with physical security and let the rest of the law enforcement and judicial apparatus do its work (or fail to). And if they did see him committing a violent act, they’d probably do no more than briefly restrain and separate him for his own safety. This is all deep into fantasyland, anyway.
Frankensteinbeck
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
I’m positive the question has been raised and answered, it’s merely been purely theoretical until now. I wonder how we could find out what the policy is?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
And anyone who thinks Trump would actually do this quietly and without resistance hasn’t been paying attention.
He is a rulebreaker. An oathbreaker. He would sooner order a pre-emptive attack against another country despite his personal cowardice rather then submit peacefully.
He will not follow norms, customs or the law. We’ve seen this repeatedly.
Gelfling 545
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: And of course Beto was happening in Texas which was kind of amazing and unheard of.
trnc
@Redshift: Scalise also often gets a pass for being wounded, even though it happened as a result of policy he supports.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
It would be hard to find a better way to put someone under airtight house arrest than putting the Secret Service in charge of it. Just sayin’.
TenguPhule
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
We stepped into Wonderland on Jan 20, 2017. We went off the map the following day.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TenguPhule:
Of all the fantasy scenarios brought up so far in this thread, this seems the most likely to me. He’s got multiple advisers who’d be all in, too.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
You mention that movie a lot.
I’m sure if Trump did, like murdering Melanie in a fit of rage, it would go like this with his sycophants:
McConnell: “Maybe she was a cheating b**ch and got what she deserved, did you libtards ever consider that?”
Ryan: “Look, the President is all powerful and who are we to question what he does? It’s not like Congress is supposed to be anything but a rubber stamp.”
Kirk Spencer
@A Ghost To Most: Duly noted, thank you. @SFAW‘s defense noted as well, but torture is a subject on which I feel strongly enough that an accusation of purity ponyism in regard to it isn’t taken as an insult.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
True. What we have also seen is that he is lazy, stupid, cowardly, and childish in not following them. Trump’s method is to loudly declare that he’s not accepting the result of the election, and when the Secret Service comes to escort him out, leave fast enough to not be touched, then stand outside and yell that he’s not accepting the result of the election. Also while committing some kind of incredibly stupid and obvious crime, like stealing a valuable painting that’s the office’s, not his.
immanetize
@Mnemosyne: The spawn of the Pinkertons? Don’t believe the Disney version of the Secret Service. ooops, of course you do….
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Frankensteinbeck: @Frankensteinbeck:
He can have the gold toilet seat as a gift from a grateful nation. Hell, I’d even let his horrid family clear all the toilet paper out of the White House as they leave.
You just know they’re going to do that anyway.
Platonailedit
@dm: It was assholes like klein, under the garb of pundits, who glorified a knownothing, 3rd rate grifter and sold that punk to the public as a policy wonk. Fuck klein’s meaningless epiphany now,
Gelfling 545
@SFAW: she’s had nothing good to say in Ryan either, which mskes sense because there is nothing. She’s written some excellent stuff this year but I have the impression I’d never much agree with her on defense policy. I also think that she, like many of the political writers, are generally most comfortable in opposing.
sukabi
@ruemara: S. King has been on Google for a long time about their search results being anti conservative and returning negative results for him…he and a bunch of other repubs have zero clues about how any of this works….I think it’s because in their worlds they actively skew information to fit their narrow views, they can’t fathom that they are the only ones that do that.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Because its the only one I can remember where the Secret Service were not the good guys.
Its scary as hell to know that we’re relying on their professional integrity as an institution when every other safeguard in the government has already failed or been found wanting.
No matter what happens, they’re going to have to make a choice with clear Constitutional repercussions.
FlyingToaster
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Born at a US military hospital, to a GI and his (civilian) nurse wife.
So he’s absolutely eligible to run for president. Or be Chief of Staff. Or whatever other crimes Trump asks him to commit.
lollipopguild
@Adam L Silverman: He was also a good assistant except for that brain thingy.
Wag
@Redshift:
I think that it comes down to how many orders of magnitude of assholeish behavior separates Scalise from King. The only member of the GOP who is anywhere near King’s magnitude is Trump. The two of them gives each other a run for the money.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@FlyingToaster: Oh, I know he’s eligible. It’s just delicious that he was born in the land of pinko commies, french fries, and cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
I was born in Texas, and I wouldn’t want anyone to hold that against me.
Jeffro
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Thank you.
He only cares about two things: his money and maybe Ivanka. Put the money in jeopardy and he’s all ears.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Most of the time. He’s also impulsively ordered the military to do shit they don’t want to do. And yet still there are orders they’ve carried out including the African operation fuckup and his anti-transgender and anti-immigrant recruit targeting.
NotMax
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
“Call me crazy, but I’m certain there was a big desk in the Oval Office, not a card table from the 99¢ store.”
:)
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW: Might be. Probably is. Sorry. Politics at this point is no place for the meek, or the pure. Coffee is for closers.
Immanentize
@TenguPhule: I saw in the last thread that you support the death penalty. Given your eliminationist tendencies; unsurprising. You know who else avidly supported state-sponsored killing? Given your rather un-reflective support of Israel, you might be surprised that the answer is: Hitler. He loved it! As long as it was imposed legally after appropriate due process. Just like you suggest — constraints!
Immanentize
@DavidtheB: Put back the candle.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
I remember you mentioning it at least once or twice before. Do you recommend it?
Agreed. It is pretty scary.
BTW, do you think I captured McConnell’s and Ryan’s personalities and styles well as a parody?
Immanentize
@lollipopguild: And the knockers confusion
schrodingers_cat
Good news from India, Assembly (state legislative assembly) elections were held in 5 Indian states and BJP has suffered setbacks and lost seats in 4 of the 5 states. And lost 2 states (may be 3, votes are still being counted) that it held before the elections.
H.E.Wolf
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
If you’ve got time over winter break, and access to a university library, look for Writing Into the World by Terrence Des Pres. One of the essays in that book is “Channel Fire”, a portion of which discusses torture.
[ETA: I changed “summary” to “review” for clarity, in the next sentence.]
Quoting from the review provided by the Free Online Library:
The essay is sublime – in the older sense of “sublime”: beautiful and terrifying.
Whether you find you agree with Des Pres and Scarry, or not, it is a remarkable piece of writing; and as a writer yourself, you might appreciate it for its construction.
Bess
@TenguPhule:
Secret Service Oath –
I don’t see any sworn allegiance to a specific person, even if they did happen to get a majority of Electoral College votes at some point in time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Mary G
@schrodingers_cat: That’s good news.
Ted Lieu would make an excellent sucessor to DiFi.
Mike in DC
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Why on Earth would the Secret Service protect a president who was removed from office via impeachment? My assumption is that, once you’re removed, all of the attendant benefits including SS protection and the presidential pension go poof!
NotMax
@Bess
Just a general FYI, Former Agent Busts 5 Common Myths About the U.S. Secret Service.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@H.E.Wolf:
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
FelonyGovt
Ted Lieu is my Rep. He was just named Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), so he is definitely on a party leadership track.
Immanentize
@NotMax: That’s what I am trying to relate. Although I take a bit of an issue with the “not glamorous” part because one Pres. advance team SS Agent told me in a bar in Miami: ” We get a lot of trim.”.
Well, OK. Idiot.
Ruviana
@TenguPhule: Too old–71l
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: At this point he’s going to force a government shutdown because they embarrassed him in public.
BruceFromOhio
So Google search in the news tab found positive results on a Republican member of Congress. That’s pretty powerful, and may even require time travel.
Platonailed
Despite all their puffery, you can never take away inner slum lords from these families of scums.
Procopius
@Wag:
Yes, the many new women Representatives who have never held office before and are not beholden to corporate mega-donors are going to have some interesting things to say.
Minor quibble: standard American usage of “drop charges” is “to stop pressing charges.” I don’t think that was what you meant, but your usage is confusing. /pedant
Platonailedit
Despite all their puffery, you can never take away inner slum lords from these families of scums and scamsters.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Kirk Spencer:
Agreed.
Whatever the repugnant advocates of torture might *claim*, the net effect and ultimate purpose of torture (apart from pure sadism) is to extract a “confession” that confirms a suspicion or cynically meets a political need. Irrespective of truth. Witches. Spanish Inquisition. Soviet show trials. McCain in Vietnam. The list is endless. If a society values neither truth nor justice, then torture is its natural backstop. It’s the ultimate “cuz-I-said-so!” form of illegitimate compulsion.
A ferinstance: Special forces who are subjected to torture (e.g. waterboarding) in SERE training as a means of preparing them should they be captured? Unable to withstand prolonged torture. No one is. People will say whatever is necessary (true or not) to get the torture to stop. If they are unwilling to lie, they are (inadvertently or deliberately) killed. Full stop.
You could, under torture, get Dick fucking Cheney to admit he was the Easter Bunny. And you also could get him to admit that he lied the country into an unnecessary elective war in Iraq. The former example is untrue and the latter example is true. The fatuous razor-wire conceit of torture is that the torturers and those who direct them can, nay *must* be trusted to be both honorable and wise. These are self-refuting arguments.
Apart from barbarizing its subject, torture also perverts and barbarizes those who practice it and the society that sanctions and condones it. It is morally wrong, but it also pragmatcally counterproductive on every level.
The one aspect of the Trump debacle (and perhaps it’s only b/c we don’t know yet) I am surprised has not occurred, specially given his childish enthusiasm for the practice, is that torture has not been actively revived as it was when the Bush admin let the genie outta the bottle on state-sanctioned torture.
BruceFromOhio
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Bush staff was loyal to a fault.
Many faults.
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
Klein’s goal is to be his generation’s Richard Cohen.
Aleta
Animal rights provisions in the farm bill
Procopius
@Mnemosyne: What, just because I’m a Revolutionary Socialist you think I’m a Bolshevik? It doesn’t work that way.
Aleta
Also in the farm bill
Sherparick
@ruemara: Not to diminish any other candidate, but right now I am all in Ted Lieu for President.
Procopius
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
We really don’t know that, do we? How many Trump drone killings have you read about since January 2017? How much have you read about the military deployment in Africa? Do you know whether or not the Saudis make other targeting choices besides the ones we give them? Do you know why they chose to bomb that school bus? The media suppresses anything their owners don’t want to admit to doing. They don’t have to order any particular story suppressed — everybody who works in the media knows what stories they aren’t supposed to write.
Darkrose
@Gwangung: I think he’s my class, and we may have lived in the same dorm at one point. EAST House represent!
Chris Johnson
Steve King is a fucking idiot. Google is responsible for YouTube. YouTube is the platform whose algorithm frantically looks for any excuse to suggest you should be watching more Nazis and alt-right. Silicon Valley in general is heavily infiltrated by crazy right-wing nutjobs, with great influence on the deity-like libertarian tech gods who love hearing messianic gibberish about how they’re the chosen ones. Whether it’s due to a pattern of ad buys or simply the algorithm looking for ‘engagement’ (i.e. get mad and paranoid and be glued to the screen), King has it literally backwards.